Lucky in love

Read an awesome article on Google today about a guy that, with his coworkers, won the lottery in Florida. He walked away with $600,000 and hid it from his wife. Now he’s MIA and his wife is suing him for her share. I think that’s terrific. Can someone explain the point of marriage to me? I am grotesquely romanticizing the concept of marriage? Should I just give up and lower my expectations from wanting to find a loving person to share my life with, to being satisfied with someone that has a dim understanding of the concept of foreplay and who occasionally remembers to leave the toilet seat down in the night?
Obviously their marriage was not a happy one, so why didn’t they divorce? And, as much of a jerk as this guy is for hiding the money, what’s the deal with the wife? Either this was a complete shock to her, and up until he got his cash infusion she thought everything was on the level – in which case I would be so horribly upset and hurt and embarrassed to think that I had been married to someone that didn’t care about me, or their marriage was loveless for quite some time. I mean, it would have to be in order to treat someone like that, am I wrong? What happened? What happens in the interim between being excited about your upcoming nuptials and the lawsuit. How do we go from utter delight and committed love to spite and hate and lawyers?
It’s been proposed to me (get it? proposed?) that marriage is a pointless, antiquated tradition, and that real love comes in the day to day treatment of each other. I understand that. I am not religious and I tend to eschew most traditions unless there is some direct benefit to me. And I think huge, lavish weddings are kind of grotesque and pointless – not to mention ridiculously expensive. But I do like the idea of commitment and romance and it looks a bit like I might be one of the minority in believing that marriage is not to be taken lightly and that it is meaningful. And that it’s worth more than $600,000.
This is probably one of the reasons that I’m becoming a spinster. Maybe I should go get a lottery ticket. At least I wouldn’t have to hide the winnings from anyone!
Oh. This could be the grounds for another poll. Would you rather receive five million dollars today, knowing that you would never have a happy and successful romantic relationship; or find your soulmate but maintain your current economic status (ie. earnings/savings ratio) forever?